Bean there, bought the picture book

It's half term. And it is about that point in half term when most parents start to struggle to find new ways to keep the sprogs away from each other's throats, off the Playstation and out of the biscuit tin.

So anyone with even vaguely bookish children living within striking distance of the South Bank Centre should thank their lucky stars for the Imagine festival of children's writing. The short but distinguished line-up of kid's authors still to come giving talks, answering questions and doing signings includes Simon James, Geraldine McCaughrean and Morris Gleitzman.

Today was the turn of Lauren Child of Charlie and Lola and Clarice Bean fame. She kept a packed, excited audience of smallish children amused for an hour with tales of her increasingly ubiquitous characters (Charlie and Lola are now the stars of a series on CBBC) and her latest project, The Princess and the Pea.

Child cuts a stylish figure on stage - there's something slightly Jemima Goldsmith about her - but she also has a very child-like manner. As she admits to the audience, there seems to have been some kind of merging with her best-loved character, Clarice Bean. "I'm becoming more like her, and speaking more like her," she says. "I'm finding it harder to form a goodish kind of sentence..." She also explains that in the Bean books she uses Clarice as a mouthpiece for the things she really minds about herself. "I hate people dropping litter," she says, "but I'd never dare say anything to a litter bug in the street. So I write about them and Clarice will say something instead. I hide behind her."

She also hides behind an artless manner and self-deprecating wit that captivates children and adults in the audience alike. As she gives a step-by-step demonstration of how she creates the illustrations for her picture books (it involves pieces of paper, bits of fabric, scissors and, I wouldn't be surprised, double-sided sticky tape) she exclaims, "See! There's no real trick to it - anyone can do it!" The sense of children itching to go out and make their own Clarice Beans is almost tangible, along with the relief of their respective parents at having an afternoon of craft activity inspired for them.

They might, however, have a little more trouble recreating Child's sets for The Princess and the Pea. For her retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale Child was inspired by dolls houses and the paintings of the artist Vermeer and decided to move on from simply using photographs in illustrations to actually photographing the illustrations. Working with acclaimed portrait photographer Polly Borland, she thought the project would be an easy one, completed in six weeks or so. It took almost a year. As Child explains the intricacies of creating each scene in miniature it is clear why. 'Wooden' floors are made from cardboard, scored and grained in pencil then varnished and polished. Miniature topiary is flower-arrangers' oasis, chopped up, glued together and covered in dried herbs for texture. The result, however, is stunning, the tableaux rich in meticulous detail and the paper figures that populate them lavishly dressed in wallpaper dresses that, as Child points out proudly, "have real pleats and things!"

Judging by the immense queue for the book-signing at the end of the talk, her young audience share her enthusiasm.

Child fans who couldn't come today may be interested in the display of Princess and the Pea sets which will be in the foyer of the Queen Elizabeth Hall all this week.